"I reached out to him about doing 'Birthday Cake' because that's the only person that really, it made sense to do the record," she said. "Just as a musician, despite everything else, that was going to be the person.

"You know, I thought about rappers, and I've done that so many times, and the hottest R&B artist out right now is Chris Brown. So I wanted him on the track, and then in turn he was like, 'Why don't you do the remix to my track?' and it was a trade off."

Rihanna added that she doesn't want her fans and Brown's devotees to clash, saying: "We did two records. One for my fans. One for his fans. And that way our fans can come together. There shouldn't be a divide, you know? It's music, and it's innocent."